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Review & impressions about FS Altitude

I had been looking forward to try FS Altitude for FSX and I finally bought this product. The high altitude screenshots in their website are amazing and my own testing confirmed that the high altitude scenery is indeed quite good.

But, having said that, I discovered several not so nice side effects which are only mentioned in the manual that come with the DVDs. I was familiar with one of the drawbacks which is that the scenery is supposedly only summer scenery. I thought that was acceptable since the scenery can easily be disabled without uninstalling it & re-enabling is as easy as a checkmark. So, if flying in Winter, I could go back to the standard FSX scenery.

So I did a flight in Southern France. After take off, I soon noticed that there appeared to be snow on the ground in the middle of July in the South of France. So, it is likely early Spring or late fall scenery. Not that big a deal except when you look at the scenery from outside the plane. If you look down, you see the normal FSX scenery while in the distance you see the FS Altitude scenery. The contrast is quite disturbing as you can see in the screenshots below and in some cases the FSX scenery is actually much nicer than the FS Altitude scenery.

Also, late in the day, the scenery gets darker but shadows are not nearly as pronounced as they should be. Anyway, judge for yourself & beware of this issue if you do decide to buy this scenery. As long as you don't use external views or look down when looking from outside, the photo scenery is indeed quite good and definitely more acceptable the higher you go. After all, it is called FS Altitude.

In most of the screenshots below, you can easily see where the FSX scenery ends and where the FS Altitude starts and in many cases it is quite disturbing.

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Originally Posted by mauriceb

As long as you don't use external views or look down when looking from outside, the photo scenery is indeed quite good and definitely more acceptable the higher you go. After all, it is called FS Altitude.

I got the scenery when it first came out, as it is actually a really good idea for the way I use FSX -- I view only the outside scenery through cockpit windows, projected on a 10 foot screen. I never get out of the aircraft whilst flying (too much to do in the cockpit in any case, even if it didn't ruin the flying illusion*), so although I know about the demarcation effect you talk about, it has never bothered me at all.

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Originally Posted by Peter Dowson

I view only the outside scenery through cockpit windows, projected on a 10 foot screen. I never get out of the aircraft whilst flying (too much to do in the cockpit in any case, even if it didn't ruin the flying illusion*), so although I know about the demarcation effect you talk about, it has never bothered me at all.

Totally agree that if you stay inside the cockpit, this is much less of an issue but they warn you not to turn too sharply either so that you look down from the side window.
But as you said, the wrong season is the most bothersome to me as well plus the lack of good shadows, and that you can see even if you stay inside.

Basically I think, it could be really good in some areas of the world and not so good in others and also depending at what time of the day you are flying. High noon in the desert would be perfect . But seriously, you can get some spectacular views under the right conditions. I'm just spoiled and I want that all the time

Maurice

Last edited by Matt Olieman; 07-25-2008 at 07:20 AM.
Reason: Fixed the quote for you :)